For all other purposes, popular vote is considered most fair. Why should some people’s votes count for more when electing the president just because of the location they cast their vote? The writers of the Constitution made this one vote different than all others. Their reasons for doing so had to do with a distrust of the common citizen and a compromise to protect the institution of slavery. Both of those rationales seemed reasonable and fair at the time. Times have changed. It’s up to us to decide if those rationales are reasonable and fair under our current circumstances. I think they are not. [My emphasis]

There were compromises at the adoption of the U.S. Constitution related to slavery, such as the 3/5 Clause and Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 (which allowed the continued importation of slaves until at least 1808, at which time Congress could ban importation, if it so chose and which it ultimately did). The Electoral College was not one of those compromises.

The 3/5 Clause was a compromise that indirectly affected the number of Electors under the Electoral College, but which had nothing to do with the College. Depending on how one analyzes that compromise, it either reduced or increased the political power of the slave states. The 3/5 clause determined how the slaves would be counted for the purpose of apportioning each state’s number of members in the House of Representatives. The Southern slave states wanted the slaves counted as whole persons, even though they considered slaves to be mere property. The Northern free states didn’t want slaves counted at all, given that their status as slaves prevented them from exercising their individual rights and thus living fully as human beings. The compromise was to count the slaves as 3/5 human for the purpose of apportionment.

I prefer to take the optimistic view. Since the number of Electors is largely determined by the number of members in the House of Representatives, counting the slaves as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of apportioning representation reduced the population count of slave states and thus their number of Electors. If the slave states could have had their way, they’d surely have counted their slaves as whole persons equal to “free Persons.” It would have been better not to count the slaves at all, since they were denied their basic rights as human beings. But that was not achievable at that time. True, the 3/5 clause, like any compromise, allows both sides to claim “victory.” Pro-slave forces could claim to have gotten 3/5 instead of 0, while anti-slave forces could claim to have gotten 3/5 instead of granting a whole person. But the Electoral College itself had nothing to do with protecting the institution of slavery.

Despite its principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence, principles Frederick Douglass believed “represent a permanent, universal truth as well as the most practically powerful moral and political theory ever conceived,” The Founding of this country was marred by contradiction and reaction, slavery being the biggest. But it is unjust to the framers who wanted checks and balances—of which the Electoral College was a part—and to the anti-slave forces—who got the best deal they could at the time—to claim that the Electoral College was meant to protect slavery. The fight to end slavery, which America inherited, could not be won at the Founding. It was going on before and during the Founding era and for the next 8 decades. Nowhere in the Constitutional sections that deal with the Electoral College is slavery mentioned as a factor.

Importantly, the Electoral College didn’t go away after slavery was abolished. If the Electoral College was meant to protect slavery, then why wasn’t it abolished at the same time slavery was abolished? An amendment to abolish the Electoral College certainly could have passed during the years immediately following the end of the Civil War, when the victorious abolitionists were riding high politically. This period included the passing of the 13th Amendment in 1865, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the 14th Amendment in 1868, and the 15th Amendment in 1870—all of which were intended to correct the past injustices done to African-Americans, and to recognize their equality as U.S. citizens under U.S. law. Republicans certainly had the power to abolish the Electoral College in the post-war era. It wasn’t abolished at that time, because protecting slavery wasn’t the purpose of the Electoral College to begin with.

About Me

Greetings and welcome to my blog. My name is Michael A. (Mike) LaFerrara. I sometimes use the pen or "screen" name "Mike Zemack" or "Zemack" in online activism, such as posted comments on articles. “Zemack” stands for the first letters of the names of my six grandchildren. I was born in 1949 in New Jersey, U.S.A., where I retired from a career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries, and still reside with my wife of 45 years. The purpose of my blog is the discussion of a wide range of topics relating to human events from the perspective of Objectivism, the philosophy of reason, rational self-interest, and Americanism originated by Ayn Rand.

As Rand observed: “The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” I am certainly not the philosopher. But neither am I a field agent, or general. I am a foot soldier in that Objectivist army that fights for an individualist society in which every person can live in dignified sovereignty, by his own reasoned judgment, for his own sake, in that state of peaceful coexistence with his fellow man that only capitalist political and economic freedom can provide. While I am a fully committed Objectivist, my opinions are based on my own understanding of Objectivism, and should not be taken as definitive “Objectivist positions.” For the full story of my journey toward Objectivism, see my Introduction.

One final introductory note: I strongly recommend Philosophy, Who Needs it, which highlights the inescapable importance of philosophy in every individual's life. I can be reached at mal.atlas@comcast.net. Thanks, Mike LaFerrara.

Recommended Essays/Videos

Quotes I Like

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.—Francisco d'Anconia

I love getting older...I get to grow up and learn things. Madalyn, 5 years old, Montesorri student, and my grand-daughter

The best thing one can do for the poor is to not become one of them. Author Unknown

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan

Thinking is hard work. If it weren't, more people would do it. Henry Ford

Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. Ayn Rand